The evolution of language: a comparative review

For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful "just so stories" about language origins. However, in the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language. I review some of this recent progress, focusing on the value of the comparative method, which uses data from animal species to draw inferences about language evolution. Discussing speech first, I show how data concerning a wide variety of species, from monkeys to birds, can increase our understanding of the anatomical and neural mechanisms underlying human spoken language, and how bird and whale song provide insights into the ultimate evolutionary function of language. I discuss the ‘‘descended larynx’ ’ of humans, a peculiar adaptation for speech that has received much attention in the past, which despite earlier claims is not uniquely human. Then I will turn to the neural mechanisms underlying spoken language, pointing out the difficulties animals apparently experience in perceiving hierarchical structure in sounds, and stressing the importance of vocal imitation in the evolution of a spoken language. Turning to ultimate function, I suggest that communication among kin (especially between parents and offspring) played a crucial but neglected role in driving language evolution. Finally, I briefly discuss phylogeny, discussing hypotheses that offer plausible routes to human language from a non-linguistic chimp-like ancestor. I conclude that comparative data from living animals will be key to developing a richer, more interdisciplinary understanding of our most distinctively human trait: language

The Acquisition of New Categories through Grounded Symbols: An Extended Connectionist Model

Solutions to the symbol grounding problem, in psychologically plausible cognitive models, have been based on hybrid connectionist/symbolic architectures, on robotic approaches and on connectionist only systems. This paper presents new simulations on the use of neural network architectures for the grounding of symbols on categories. In particular, the connectivity patterns between layers of the networks will be manipulated to scale up the performance of current connectionist models for the acquisition of higher-order categories via grounding transfer

Designing Grounded Agents: From RoboCup to the Real-World

This paper discusses the nature and role of 'grounding' in designing programs for controlling autonomous mobile robots. Since its inception, artificial intelligence has been plagued by problems of scaling and brittleness. A fundamental problem impeding the development of artificial intelligence is our dependence on grounding agents by design. That is, currently agents tend to be grounded by their designer's understanding of the world, task, and robot. However, little (if any) of the knowledge of 'how to ground' is embedded in the artificial agent. Consequently, brittle, purpose-built systems result. This paper explores how the intellectual burden of grounding can be shifted from the programmer to the program by designing robots capable of grounding themselves. An overview of a grounding oriented design methodology (Go-Design) is presented - an initial step towards the longer-term objective of developing autonomous grounding capabilitie

Italy and EMU as a 'Vincolo Esterno': empowering the technocrats, transforming the state

This case study analyses how the Italian 'core executive' operated in the negotiation of the Maastricht Treaty provisions on Economic and Monetary Union. The record of the Italian negotiators on EMU is examined in the framework of a 'two-level' bargaining game. It argues that policy was largely driven by a small technocratic elite, with limited ministerial involvement. The overarching foreign policy imperatives were to maintain Italian participation at the heart of the European integration process and to reduce the asymmetry of monetary power with Germany. Domestically, however, the technocratic elite shared a belief in the need for externally-imposed economic discipline (a vincolo esterno - external constraint), to overcome the problems posed by the partitocrazia - the domination of government by parties. EMU was used to effect domestic reform by redistributing power. In the process they unleashed powerful transformative effects on the Italian state. The domestic effects of EMU were thus much more far-reaching than the Italian impact at the European level on the final EMU agreement